


this is our last goodbye

by bearonthecouch



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Scarif, Drinking, References to Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, but you can decide exactly what kind, in which Cassian and Draven had a relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 10:45:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15095087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: Cassian was always ready to die. He carried a lullaby pill sewed into his sleeve, for fuck’s sake. But that doesn’t mean Draven was ready to lose him.





	this is our last goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Title Credit to the song Cold War Transmissions by Anberlin
> 
> Everybody swears in Earth-English because none of the Star Wars curse words I could come up with really pack the same punch.

Davits Draven glares at the dark liquid in his metal shot glass for several long seconds and then knocks back the shot. The Corellian rum burns going down but this is his… fourth? Fifth? His vision is starting to swim at the edges. He shrugs off his coat, suddenly feeling too warm for it. He makes a grab for the liquor bottle, but he can’t quite get his fingers to close around it.

And then it’s pulled away.

“I think you’ve had enough, Davits.”

He shakes his head, protesting. It’s not enough. He can still see Cassian’s fiery glare, hear his sarcastic quips. He never disobeyed direct orders (never, until he did), but he knew how to toe the line. He walked a tightrope so narrow he almost pulled Draven over the edge with him. He _should_ have pulled Draven over the edge.

“We should have gotten them out,” he mumbles, and his words are so slurred they are almost unintelligible. Mon Mothma can’t tell if he said “them” or “him.” Somehow it’s both.

She rests her hand on Draven’s shoulder. “That was never the mission,” she says gently.

Draven throws his empty shotglass. It crashes against the far wall and slides down to land on the stone floor.

“Who cares about the fucking mission?!”

“You did, once.”

Draven nods. She’s right. Once, it was all he ever cared about.

Cassian was always ready to die. He carried a lullaby pill sewed into his sleeve, for fuck’s sake. But that doesn’t mean Draven was ready to lose him. He will never be ready to lose him. And yet, he is already lost.

“Cassian Andor - all of Rogue One - they sacrificed their lives for the cause. We are indebted to them.”

“Dead’s dead,” Draven spits. “It’s not like they’ll be able to collect on the debt.”

Mon Mothma sits down next to him, still holding the bottle. “I’ve never seen you get this worked up before, Davits. I’ve never seen you…”

“What? Break?”

Mon Mothma shrugs. She looks sad. She looks tired. And Draven knows that the Battle of Scarif was not a victory.

“I’ll be fine in the morning, ma’am. I just need… “

To sit alone in a darkened room.

To drink himself into a stupor.

To forget.

  * _When Davits Draven first met Cassian Andor, the boy’s Basic was halting, mixed with the native language Draven couldn’t understand and spiked through with grammatical errors and false cognates. But when he told Draven to “Fuck Off!”, that was perfectly clear._



  * _Resistance to Interrogation Training is a brutal but necessary part of what they do. Draven didn’t usually take it on personally, but for Cassian he did. Because he didn’t trust anybody else. Or maybe he just felt guilty enough that he wouldn’t push it down onto some other officer. Cassian trusted him. Even through torture._



_“You know, when this is real,” he’d hissed, lifting the boy’s head up by the hair to look him in the eyes. “They won’t go easy.”_

_Cassian just laughed. “Go harder, then.”_

  * _The first time Cassian was captured, Draven didn’t sleep until they got him back. And then he asked the young man, voice low and dangerous, why he hadn’t taken the pill. And Cassian just shrugged. And Draven hugged him, close and desperate. And Cassian let him._


  * _When Cassian first came back from Eadu, he wouldn’t look Draven in the eye. He’d disobeyed a direct order. He could try to pretend like he didn’t, after all, Erso was dead anyway, so who cares who took the shot. But Cassian knew. And Draven knew. And he squirmed under Draven’s unflinching gaze, and for a second, he looked like a child. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, so quietly Draven wasn’t sure he’d actually said it at all. He’d put his hand on Cassian’s cheek and made him look at him. “This is the military. You don’t get to be sorry.”  
  
_


  * They always knew Scarif was going to be a suicide run.



 

“He volunteered, General,” Mon Mothma says, and Draven blinks. Somehow he’d lost track of her, forgotten she was there. Some spy he is.

The room is spinning. Mon Mothma reaches out, to comfort him, probably, but he flinches, and she pulls away.

 _He volunteered._ And if Draven had known about it beforehand, he’d have stopped him.

And Cassian would’ve hated him.

Cassian has always hated him. What makes this different? He’d be alive.

And they would all be dead.

Draven picks up the arm of his coat, which has half-slid to the floor. He traces his thumb over the seam at the wrist, where a pocket exists, just big enough for a pill. He doesn’t have one. He doesn’t go out in the field anymore.

Mon Mothma takes his hand. He lets her this time. She pours out one last shot. To honor the dead.


End file.
